An under-fire trampoline firm already being probed for a string of horrifying accidents is under the spotlight again after a child died in an ‘unexplained’ tragedy at one of its play parks.
The boy, 10, died after falling ill at the Glasgow park on Sunday with helpless customers hearing ‘hysterical screaming’ coming from the bouncy castle area.
Police have described the death as ‘unexplained’ but there are not thought to be any ‘suspicious’ circumstances.
It is the latest tragedy to have befallen Flip Out and comes after furious visitors called for what they claim is Britain’s ‘most dangerous trampoline parks’ to be shut down last November.
Horrific injuries suffered include broken necks, feet nearly being torn off at the ankles, and one man being left paralysed from the neck down.
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There are 29 franchise parks currently operating across the country, with two more on their way in Coventry and Colchester.
The brand is owned by MFT Capital Ltd and Flip Out lists David White as its CEO.
Each have their own terms and conditions, with visitors having to sign a waiver before attending in which they have to declare any pre-existing medical issues and are warned that ‘participation can result in serious injury or death’.
The document warns that Flip Out does not provide direct supervision of those taking part and that individuals are responsible for their own actions. It says the company will not give medical advice if injury does occur.
Some of the parks offer attractions such as ‘stunmict zones’ where experienced jumpers can propel themselves onto trampolines from raised boxes.
But it was Flip Out’s Chester centre which came under the most scrutiny recently with more than 270 visitors, some as young as 11-years-old, being injured in less than two months after jumping from a 17ft high tower attraction.
Eleven people broke their backs – including a Flip Out staff member. Four of the 15 most seriously injured needed emergency surgery when they fractured vertebrae landing in an ‘inadequate’ pit of foam cubes at the bottom of the tower.
Other customers were left with broken ankles, wrists or ribs, and more than 123 suffered bloodied noses and bruised faces when their own knees smashed into their heads after they jumped.
Doctors at the local Countess of Chester Hospital were already monitoring the number of patients presenting at A&E after becoming concerned about the safety of the attraction.
But when three people suffered broken backs in a single day on February 1 2017 they took the unusual decision of informing the authorities themselves.
It led to an investigation being launched by Cheshire West and Cheshire Council, which found ‘significant failings and shortcomings’ and the tower was shut down shortly afterwards.
The centre’s former directors – David Shuttleworth and Matthew Melling, both aged 34 – pleaded guilty to health and safety offences and in February were ordered to complete 250 hours of unpaid work.
They were also told to pay a total of £72,800 in fines and court costs.
The judge said the duo had a ‘cavalier attitude’ to risk, but the ‘slap on the wrist’ punishment left victims fuming.
Shuttleworth and Melling had been filmed messing around in a health and safety video in the months after life-changing injuries had occurred to their customers.
The safety video starts with Melling jokingly pulling Shuttleworth back from the camera after he interrupted the talk to shout ‘Flip Out is the best place in the world!’
The men appear to be holding back laughter as they start to explain that landing on the trampolines’ padding could cause serious injuries, and ‘double bouncing’ could cause ‘tremendous pressure’ on the knees.
Louise Wright, 27, a paralegal who broke her back at the indoor attraction, has suffered in constant pain after she broke her back when she landed awkwardly after jumping from the tower’s highest window.
Reflecting on the sentence, she said in February: ‘I have studied the law so I didn’t think they would go to jail but I am disappointed.
‘They have just got a slap on the wrist. They get to go on with their lives. I can’t really put into words how angry I am, I will probably start crying if I think about it too much. They acted like they are sorry but they are not sorry at all. None of us have ever heard anything from either of them.’
Liza Jones, 26, from Wrexham, was left in the ‘most pain I’ve ever suffered’ when she leapt from the 13ft-high platform into a foam pit at the 40,000 sq ft centre near Ellesmere Port in February 2017, and later launched legal action.
‘I’m glad they’ve faced court action because I could have been left paralysed,’ she previously told the Mail.
‘I landed in the way I’d been told to, but I was one of three people who suffered broken backs that day.
‘People visiting these centres may feel they’re safe because they’ve got rules for people to follow, but that’s just not true.
‘The firms that are running them need to learn from this and ensure they’ve got proper health and safety in place.’
In the same year, George Magraw, then 21, from Ellesmere Port, was told he needed months to recover after he also fractured his spine at the Flip Out park, jumping off the same tower structure.
Speaking at the time, George’s brother Phil told Cheshire Live: ‘Either there was insufficient foam in the pit or it’s too old to make sure he has a soft landing.
‘He landed on his bum and it shattered a vertebra in his lower back. They gave him an X-ray and said the disk had pretty much disintegrated.
‘George is in a lot of pain and they said after the surgery he will need months to get back to normal or there could be complications.’
Mother-of-four Michelle Conway was left needing stitches after her top lip was ripped away from her nose during an accident at the trampoline park.
Unlike the other victims, Michelle’s accident happened when she entered the free-run area and tried jumping off a wall onto a trampoline that was supposed to catapult her over another wall.
‘Instead unfortunately, it propelled me straight into the opposite wall, splitting the base of my nose away from my upper lip,’ Michelle said back in 2017.
‘Why on earth aren’t these walls padded? They are solid hard walls and children are on this free run zone. I dread to think how I would have felt if it had been one of my children.
‘My youngest child called for help as there was blood everywhere, I even tried to stay off the white mesh trampoline so as not to stain it.
Daniel Moseley was 20 years old when he broke his neck and became paralysed from the neck down while at the other trampoline park owned by Shuttleworth and Melling.
He previously said it made his ‘blood boil’ that his accident happened a year after 11 people broke their backs in the Chester branch and nothing was done to prevent it from happening.
The 25-year-old, who is now in a wheelchair as a result of the accident, added: ‘The fact remains that in the years before my accident nothing was done in regards to health and safety to prevent this from happening.’
It’s not just the Chester centre that has left visitors bloodied and with broken bones.
Anjie Gibbons was attending the Flip Out trampoline park in Scotland when a child was left on the floor injured, unable to move.
She told last November: ‘We were in the Flip Out in Glasgow a couple of months ago. On our arrival one of the tumble tracks was closed as a girl was lying on the floor, injured and unable to move.
‘This area was cornered off but the rest of the venue was operating as normal. We were there for two and a half hours and she lay there the whole time.’
At the same park in Glasgow – which claims to be the largest trampoline arena in the world – dangerous work tools were left lying around, in easy reach of toddlers.
When flagged to staff member, the mother claims her concerns were dismissed.
A mother-of-two, who gave her name as Collette, was at the Poole Flip Out when her accident occurred.
She previously told : ‘Whilst there I got knocked out by a ball. The staff did not know what to do and let me walk about once I came to with my two children without any care or concern.
‘They did not get me medical care. A member of the public treated me as they [the staff] did not know what to do.
Rebecca Nash, who snapped her ankle at Chichester Flip Out park in 2019, has previously called for the parks to close.
She said in November: ‘I was being encouraged to jump back by the staff member in the section to gain more height. As I jumped back my ankle rolled 90 degrees under me as I landed on the trampoline, breaking the ankle and opening it all the way up under the pressure.
‘My foot was hanging on by tendons and facing the wrong way. By the time I arrived at hospital I was advised it could end up as an amputation.’
Fortunately for Rebecca she had ‘a talented surgeon who was able to reattach the foot and close the wound’ but it was ‘so badly torn’ that there were difficulties determining where ripped ligaments and tendons were attached.
As a result, Rebecca said she had to spend two weeks in hospital and was signed off sick from work for four month, which resulted her losing her job as she had only started a few weeks beforehand.
‘I was a single mother at the time to a five-year-old so it was a very stressful time,’ she added.
Horrific photos reveal the extent of Rebecca’s injury, with blood pouring out of a huge cut on the side of her ankle bone.
has contacted Flip Out for comment.